Family doctors deny failing to spot 75pc of alcohol abuse cases

The study into drug and alcohol services has found that city-based GPs could be failing to spot 75 per cent of the alcohol abuse cases that would be picked up by doctors elsewhere.

The report, which will go before Hull Council’s Health and Social Well-Being Overview and Scrutiny Commission next week, said Hull GPs were “three to four times” less likely to identify alcohol abuse than doctors in other regions.

But the findings were dismissed by one of the leading doctors’ organisations in the region, which said they were “totally wrong”.

Dr Russell Walshaw, the chief executive of the Humberside group of Local Medical Committees, which represents NHS GPs, said: “The fact that there’s more alcoholism in Hull has been highlighted by the public health department, but I would refute the idea that GPs are less likely to be able to diagnose it. To blindly say that is totally wrong.

“I think it would be correct to say that local GPs are well aware of the symptoms of alcoholism and aware of the prevalence of alcoholism in their area of practice. If there is more alcoholism in Hull somebody has diagnosed it.

“The difficulty is that alcoholic patients or people with alcohol problems are very good at disguising their problems and hiding the evidence from the people they live with, and we know of stories of people hiding a bottle of alcohol in the most secure places so they can go back to it.

“I think it’s important that the public must recognise that alcoholism is an illness and that people with alcohol problems are treated as patients with an illness.

“It’s an addiction issue and doctors and other health workers do try very hard to resolve the issue.”

Research last year showed that more than one in four people aged between 16 and 64 in Hull had a drink problem, while five per cent of that age group were alcohol dependent.

NHS Hull said a lot of work was being done to identify and treat people with alcohol problems.

A spokeswoman said: “The provision of treatment for people with alcohol misuse problems is a key priority for NHS Hull, and we are keen to support all clinicians, including GPs, in the early identification of such problems.

“For the past 12 months we have commissioned Action for Change, a specialist provider of advice and support for people with alcohol problems, to carry out work directly with all of the city’s 59 GP practices.

“This regularly includes work with GPs and practice staff to raise awareness of the early signs of alcohol misuse, and provision of information on the range of alcohol services which they are able to refer to locally.”

The report to the scrutiny commission also found that when doctors and other professionals encountered people having problems with drugs, 28 per cent – a “surprising” number – could not tell them where to go for help.

The number of people in effective alcohol treatment programmes in Hull is steadily rising, from about 450 to 800 over the last year, but is below target.

The number in drug treatment programmes has been around the 1,800 mark over the same period.

The most recent assessment of Hull’s drink and drugs habits found it had 40,403 hazardous and harmful drinkers, 8,143 dependent drinkers, and 3,610 “problematic” drug users – who take heroin or crack cocaine.

Only six per cent of these were in contact with treatment services in 2009/09.

Hull has the highest levels of problematic drug users of heroin and crack cocaine in the region, the report said.

A survey of drug users, their carers and support services found that many wanted a detox facility to be in Hull, or quicker access to detox and rehabilitation. Other suggestions for improving outcomes included the establishment of a 24-hour telephone helpline.